Should COVID-19 be watched like the flu?

The vice president of the Spanish Epidemiology Society (SEE) and specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Valencia, Óscar Zurriaga, has rejected that it is time to address the surveillance of the COVID-19 like a flu.

“It’s what we all want. But right now If it is intended to say that it is like the flu and that’s it, it is not like that. It is a pandemic and we should continue to work with that view. We are not seeing the same as in a standard flu season or even a bad one. We are not seeing the same not only in cases but also in terms of severity. In a bad flu season we can have 1,500 direct deaths. In COVID-19 we are not seeing those numbers, we are not in that situation yet “, Zurriaga has defended in statements to Europa Press.

A) Yes, “The problem is that they are talking about endemic disease so as not to worry about anything. It is as if we said that we do not worry about tuberculosis because it is endemic. The fact that it is endemic does not mean that it is no longer a problem ”, has wielded.

These statements are given in the context of the position expressed by the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC), which has published an editorial in which it is committed to, as well as recovering the ‘old normality’ through the suppression of masks and any type of restriction.

“Neither the health system nor society as a whole can afford to continue testing asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms and isolating all the positive ones, with the consequences that this entails at a social and economic level due to the massive absence from work of healthy people. We must end the exceptionality: COVID-19 must be treated like other diseases. Acquired immunity and the arrival of Ómicron allow this “, summarize the Family doctors in a statement.

With information from Europa Press

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